Nevada Ranchers Attitudes Towards the Trichomoniasis Vaccine

Florina Salaghe, PhD Candidate in Economics, University of Nevada, Reno Email: fsalaghe@unr.edu ,phone :775-530-6877

Thomas R. Harris, Professor and Director of the University Center for Economic Development, University of Nevada, Reno

Email: harris@unr.edu phone: 775-784-1681

Selected Poster prepared for presentation at the 2015 Agricultural & Applied Economics Association and Western Agricultural Economics

Association Joint Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, July 26-28

Copyright 2015 by Florina Salaghe and Thomas R. Harris. All rights reserved. Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies.

References: Bhattacharyya, A., Harris T. R., Kvasnicka, W. G., & Veserat, G. M. (1997). Factors Influencing Rates of Adoption of Trichomoniasis Vaccine by Nevada Range Cattle Producers. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 22(1), 174-190. Mahmudi, M., Landis, M., Fadali, R. E., & Harris, R. T. (2013). Nevada Trich Survey Results. Reno: University of Nevada, Reno; University Center for Economic Development. Williams, R. (2006). Generalized Ordered Logit/ Partial Proportional Odds Models for Ordinal Dependendent Variables. The Stata Journal, Volume 6 Number 1: pp 58-82. Thain , D., Bruce, B., Torell, R., Riggs, W. (2008). Trich in Nevada. Producer’s concerns and the financial impact. University of Nevada Cooperative Extension

Nevada Ranchers Attitudes Toward the Trichomoniasis Vaccine Florina Salaghe, Thomas R. Harris

University of Nevada, Reno

• Trichomonaisis (Trich) is a “venereal disease of beef herds caused by the protozoan Tritrichomoniasis Foetus” (Bhattacharrya et al., 1997) common in the western United States and Florida because of free range commingling of herds on large tracks of public land.

• Despite the fact that the Trichomonas Foetus vaccine has been available for over 20 years, the rate of adoption is lagging while the disease incidence in the sate of Nevada is increasing, raising concerns of industry leaders and local authorities.

• Thain et al. (2008) analyzes results from a survey carried out in 2006 and reveals that approximately 30% of cow-calf operators in Nevada did not test their bulls for Trich and only 37% used the vaccine for cows and heifers.

• The divergence between industry and individual interests might be the cause of low adoption rates since a free-rider problem might arise. Similar to the tragedy of the commons, a rancher’s biosecurity actions might influence the behavior of other ranchers that use the same public land.

• The importance of the analysis conducted in the preset study stems from the large economic impact the disease has on ranchers’ profitability as it increases culling and reduces calf crops.

Introduction & Motivation

Do you know where your cattle are tonight?

Source: Technical Report UCED 2013/14-02

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Number ofresponses

Herd size(100 heads)

Age (years) Edu (years) Experience(years)

PC user (%) Land size(1000 acres)

Ranch inc (%of tot inc)

Characteristics of respondents by category

Users

Potential Users

Non Users

Users% Potential Users% Non Users% Entire Sample%

Domain of losses

Risk averse 82.76 79.03 70.27 78.34

Risk seeking 17.24 20.97 29.73 21.66

Domain of gaines

Risk averse-----1 32.26 46.88 43.59 40.61

"-----------------2" 45.16 21.88 30.77 32.73

"-----------------3" 11.29 14.06 5.13 10.91

Risk seeking---4 11.29 17.19 20.51 15.76

Objective risk attitudes by category

Data and Methodology

Ologit Gologit2 Mlogit Nonusers income 0.457* 0.369 0.772 region -0.698 -0.966* -2.028** animals -0.047** -0.040* -0.098** lease l -0.704* -0.585 -1.573* familiar w/trich treat 0.562*** 0.238 0.348 edu 3.214* 4.889** 6.182* edu2 -0.107* -0.164** -0.216* transport 0.446 0.582 2.035** risk averse 0.391* 1.016*** 1.707*** suspect neighbor 0.871* 0.587 0.895 Worry -0.477* -0.506* 0.154 Concern 0.032 0.094 0.210 profit outlook -0.458* -0.718** -1.566*** likelihood of exposure 0.670** 0.121 -0.209 number of disease trt 0.109* 0.091 -0.005 Constant -30.648** -39.792*** -48.934* Potential Users Income 0.457* 0.369 0.284 Region -0.698 -0.966* -0.641 Animals -0.047** -0.040* -0.012 lease l -0.704* -0.585 -0.093 familiar w/trich treat 0.562*** 1.531*** 1.498*** Edu 3.214* 4.889** 5.200** Edu2 -0.107* -0.164** -0.171* Transport 0.447 0.582 -0.290 risk averse 0.391* -0.045 -0.362 suspect neighbor 0.871* 0.587 -0.048 Worry -0.477* -0.506* -0.897** Concern 0.032 0.094 -0.106 profit outlook -0.458* -0.718** -0.429 likelihood of exposure 0.670** 1.352*** 1.535*** number of disease trt 0.109* 0.091 0.130 Constant -33.064** -47.880*** -50.295** Users base outcome base outcome base outcome

Estimated coefficients- Comparison between the three models

dY /dX

Nonusers Potential Users Users income -0.0521 -0.0208 0.0729 region 0.1200** 0.0850 -0.2050* animals 0.0057* 0.0023 -0.0079* lease 0.0842 0.0294 -0.1140 fam w/trich trtm -0.0335 -0.2690*** 0.3020*** edu -0.6890** -0.2760 0.9650** edu2 0.0231** 0.0092 -0.0323** transport -0.0815 -0.0337 0.1150 risk averse -0.1430*** 0.1520*** -0.0089 suspect neighbor -0.0828 -0.0329 0.1160 worry 0.0713* 0.0285 -0.0999* concern -0.0132 -0.0053 0.0185 profit outlook 0.1010** 0.0405 -0.1420** likely exposure -0.0171 -0.2500*** 0.2670***

sum diseases treated -0.0128 -0.0051 0.0180

Marginal Effects of the Estimated Probability

Concluding Remarks

***p<0.01 **p<0.05 *p<0.10

•Higher income and education increase the likelihood of adopting the vaccine. • Ranchers that have their operations located in the Northern counties are less likely to be Users or Potential Users. •The bigger the size of the ranch, given by the number of animals, the more likely it is that the respondents are in the Nonuser category. • The more optimistic people are about their profits, the less likely they are to vaccinate or to even consider it in the future. •The more suspicious ranchers are of their neighbors’ cattle being exposed to Trich, the more likely they are to at least consider vaccination. • The more familiar people are with the technology, the more likely it is that they will be in the Users or Potential Users groups. The strongest effect of this variable is to move ranchers from Potential Users to Users (same for the likelihood of exposure to other ranchers’ cattle). • Risk averse people tend to be indecisive about vaccinating and have less extreme attitudes regarding the adoption. The biggest effect of risk aversion is to make Nonusers move into the Potential Users category.

Policy Implications •Familiarity with the treatment is one of the most significant factors that could influence ranchers to move from potential users to adopters. Policy makers should focus their attention on the diffusion of information regarding the vaccine and increasing awareness about the risk of contracting the disease. •The rates of adoption might be improved by making some of the management practices, such as testing of bulls, mandatory. • Scientific work on improving the efficiency of the vaccine is needed to increase ranchers’ confidence in the technology.

***p<0.01 **p<0.05 *p<0.10

• In an effort to better understand ranchers’ decision making process when choosing disease management practices, a survey of Nevada Ranchers was conducted by the University of Nevada Center for Economic Development during 2012 and 2013.

• The current study analyses the data collected in an attempt to find what are the factors that influence ranchers when deciding whether to adopt the vaccine or not and what are the policy issues that need to be addressed in order to enhance its adoption or the adoption of alternative public land management practices.

• Respondents were divided into three categories: Users, Potential Users and Non-Users.

• Results were compared using three estimation procedures: an ordered logit, a generalized ordered logit (gologit2) and a multinomial logit model. The parallel line assumption was tested.